Veterans who depend on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for benefits and healthcare may be in for a big disappointment: the department acknowledged it will run roughly $15 billion short through this year and 2025. VA benefits accounts could plunge $2.9 billion, and healthcare accounts could be almost $12 billion short next year. “Right now, due in large part to the historic PACT Act, VA is delivering more care and more benefits to more veterans than ever before,” VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes stated. “These results are life-changing for veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors, and VA will continue to push to make sure that they get the care and benefits they deserve.” But according to Military.com, Congress was apprised in a slideshow that there could be “potential disruptions to benefits payments if there’s insufficient funding by the end of the fiscal year.” “If VBA (Veterans Benefits Administration) has insufficient funding available, then compensation and pension payments to over 7 million veterans and survivors and readjustment benefit payments to over 500,000 individuals that are scheduled to be delivered on October 1, 2024, are at risk,” the slideshow stated. “This represents by far the largest budget shortfall the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has experienced under any administration and a repudiation of the FY 2025 budget request that the Biden-Harris administration presented just four months ago,” Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL), Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman, wrote VA Secretary Denis McDonough on Wednesday. ”Not only have your chief financial officers thrown out the dollar amounts requested for many key accounts, they have abandoned many of the estimates and projections that underpinned their budget. This is not just fiscal mismanagement; it is strategic whiplash.” “I understand that priorities may change, but it boggles my mind how the roughly 10,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workforce reduction and the nationwide VHA hiring restrictions that you defended just a few months ago have already become a more than 22,000 FTE increase. Hiring quality health care workers is difficult enough without a constantly moving target,” Bost added.

A whistleblower has claimed that United States Secret Service agents refused an offer from local law enforcement to use drones at former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) shared the whistleblower’s claims in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday. Hawley has been digging into the rally and the Secret Service failures that may have contributed to the lapses in security that led to the attempted assassination of the former president, grave injuries to at least two others, and the death of firefighter Corey Comperatore. “NEW — Whistleblower tells me local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally — but Secret Service declined,” Hawley posted on X, sharing a photo of the letter. ?? NEW – Whistleblower tells me local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally – but Secret Service declined pic.twitter.com/UM0jfrMc9z — Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 25, 2024 Hawley noted that the FBI’s investigation of the scene had included evidence that Trump’s would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, had used his own drone to surveil the site of the shooting — just hours before former President Trump took the stage there. He then pointed out the obvious question: “[W]hy was the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) not using its own drones?” Hawley also quoted the whistleblower as saying that the USSS had declined the offer to use drones prior to the attack, but had changed course and asked that a drone be deployed in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. “It is hard to understand why the USSS would decline to use drones when they were offered, particularly given the fact that the USSS allowed the overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before the event. The failure to deploy drone technology is all the more concerning since, according to the whistleblower, the drones USSS was offered had the capability not only to identify active shooters but also to help neutralize them.”

On Wednesday, the same day pro-Hamas extremists tore down and burned American flags in Washington, D.C. while chanting “Allahu Akbar” and waving Hamas terrorist flags, Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton introduced a bill that would terminate any visa and require deportation within 60 days of any non-citizen convicted of a criminal offense during a protest. Senators Ted Budd (R-NC) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) co-sponsored the legislation titled the “No Visas for Violent Criminals Act.” “The Biden administration’s inaction against pro-Hamas mobs has only emboldened these extremists. Our legislation makes clear that a green card does not give individuals the right to break our laws in support of anti-Semitic views,” Sen. Cotton stated. The bill states: Any alien who is convicted of a crime related to the alien’s conduct at and during the course of a protest that occurs at an institution of higher education or at a facility in the United States operated by a religious institution; involving the defacement, vandalism, or destruction of a Federal memorial or monument, including any veterans memorial … involving the intentional obstruction of any highway, road, bridge, or tunnel, is deportable. If any alien is convicted of a deportable crime described in section 237(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act … any visa issued to such alien shall immediately be cancelled; and not later than 60 days after such conviction, such alien shall be removed from the United States. On Wednesday, the extremists were protesting in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving a speech before the U.S. Congress. Much of the chaos unfolded at Union Station, where the extremists tore down three American flags and replaced them with Palestinian flags. The extremists vandalized the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain with graffiti that said, “Hamas Is Coming” and “Zionists Go To Hell.” Some of the extremists also carried Hamas flags or other flags that appeared to be linked to Islamic extremism, wore Hamas headbands, and carried pro-Nazi signs that spoke about Islam’s “Final Solution” for the Jewish State. Ryan Saavedra contributed to this article. Related: Pro-Hamas Protesters Chant ‘Allahu Akbar’ As They Tear Down And Burn American Flags: ‘Hamas Is Coming’

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump discussed his relationship with Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday, saying that the two have a “very good” connection. Musk “fully” endorsed Trump shortly after a would-be assassin hit the former president in the right ear at his Butler County, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13. “Elon and I have a very good relationship. As you know, he endorsed me very strongly,” Trump said during an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning. “Somebody told me he was going to give me $45 million a month. I said that sounds like a lot, and even for Elon, that’s a lot. … There was a reporter that wrote it, but he never told me he was giving me $45 million, but he did say, ‘I strongly endorse you,’ despite the fact that I’m against the electric car mandate.” Donald Trump responded to questions about his relationship with Elon Musk and addressed the WSJ hoax claiming that Musk was giving him $45 million a month: “Elon and I have a very good relationship. He endorsed me very strongly. Somebody told me he was going to give me $45… pic.twitter.com/PMmzQXJTau — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 25, 2024 After Trump said at the Republican National Convention that he would “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X, “A surprising number of people think that Tesla survives on subsidies. That is true of our competitors, but not of Tesla.” Asked to comment specifically on Trump’s proposal to end EV mandates, Musk said, “It will be fine.” The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Musk was planning on donating $45 million a month to help elect Trump, but Musk denied that report during a DailyWire+ interview on Monday with psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. “What’s been reported in the media is simply not true. I’m not donating $45 million a month to Trump,” Musk told Peterson. “What I have done is created a PAC [political action committee] or Super PAC … the America PAC.” In a follow-up tweet on Tuesday, Musk wrote, “I am making some donations to America PAC, but at a much lower level and the key values of the PAC are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom. Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom.” Musk, who supported Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, has become increasingly critical of the Left and the Democratic Party. “Years ago, I think probably the Democratic Party was the party of meritocracy and of personal freedom,” Musk told Peterson. “They used to be the free speech party, and these days, they seem to be the censorship party under the guise of hate speech. … The Democrats are also promoting DEI, which is really just another form of racism and sexism.”

Paul McCartney was all that and more for most girls who grew up in the 1970s. When the Beatles broke up, Paul recorded solo albums “McCartney” (1970) and “Ram” (1971) before adding his talent to the Wings. Unsurprisingly, the band was the best-selling act of the 1970s in the Pop genre. From that era, Paul McCartney recently released a vintage recording of the song “Blackpool.” The recording is from 1974 sessions in the yard at Abbey Road Studios. The sessions were for the album “One Hand Clapping,” which was archived until recently. Fifty years later, the album was available on June 14, 2024. The sessions were part of a potential video documentary. The short and silly folk-blues song has an upbeat melody that prompts foot-tapping. The lyrics are unclear and contain innuendos. Numbers appear in the lyrics throughout the song. The numbers and some of the lyrics change in different versions. Paul McCartney wrote the vintage song in the early 1970s. The first recording, at Rude Studio in Scotland, featured acoustic guitars, drums, and the piano. The background noise included the sound of a barking dog throughout the recording. The Abbey Road version was just Paul and his acoustic guitar. Image from YouTube. Another recording of the short song was in 1981 for inclusion as the b-side of “The Man.” After the cancelation of that release, the song was back on the shelf until 2003. Paul McCartney played the vintage song during a soundcheck for a Dublin, Ireland concert on the Back In The World Tour. The next emergence was two years later at the Chaos And Creation At Abbey Road show. The song remained “officially unreleased” until its inclusion on the “One Hand Clapping“ album. Please share. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Paul McCartney Debuts Rare Vintage Performance From The ’70s appeared first on InspireMore.

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